Former French national team players, Marcel Desailly, Christian Karembeu and Basil Boli are in the country to take part in this year’s Lotto Cup championship at Amahoro stadium. Karembeu and Boli arrived in the country on Friday evening while Desailly arrived yesterday morning and trio was expected to take part in yesterday’s semi-final fixtures for this year’s Lotto Cup. The trio is the only one that responded to the call by Lotto Rwanda and Mijespoc to come here and participate in this year’s event. Others who were reportedly invited but never answered the call were Samuel Eto’o (Barcelona and Cameroon), Didier Drogba (Chelsea and Ivory Coast), Nkwanko Kanu (Portsmouth and Nigeria), Emmanuel Adebayor (Arsenal and Togo), Aruna Dindane (Racing club Lens and Ivory Coast) and well as for Real Madrid and French star Zinedine Zidane. Desailly, born in Accra, Ghana as Odenke Abbey, is a former French football player and a former star of the French national football team, with whom he won the 1998 FIFA World Cup and Euro 2000. He also enjoyed a distinguished career at club level with several European clubs like Nantes, Olympique Marseille, AC Milan, Chelsea, Al-Gharafa and SC Qatar respectively. Karembeu played for France from 1992-1995 and featured in different clubs like Fc Nantes, Sampdoria, Real Madrid, Middlesbrough, Olympiakos, Servette and BastiaBoli who is current television sports presenter featured in clubs like: Monaco, Auxerre, Marseille, Rangers and Urawa reds. Boli is remembered by football fans in England for his appearance for France against the England team in Euro 92 where he head butted notorious ‘hard man’ Stuart Pearce. The trio was invited by Lotto Rwanda to take part in this year’s event as well as initiating the ‘Board game (Igisoro) 2020 for Money’ where various prizes including cash prizes, cars and motorcycles have all been staked for winning Rwandans. The Lotto Rwanda Managing Director, Philippe Brizoua said during a press briefing on Friday at Kigali Serena Hotel that Lotto Rwanda is aimed at bringing back peoples’ dreams through working with the community. “It is through playing this game that both parties benefit. 70% of the money collected through the lottery scheme is given back to the people to help in the developing of the culture as well as the sport in the country,” Brizoua said. Brizoua further added that the presence of trio will lay a foundation for other top football stars to come in the next editions when invited. “It’s step by step. Though the likes of other top stars have not managed to come, I am hopeful they will respect our invitation in future,” Brizoua noted. Meanwhile, the country’s big clubs clashed yesterday in the third edition of the Lotto Cup championship. Local rivals’ Rayon Sport and Mukura opened contest with APR facing Atraco in the second game but the results were unavailable by press time. Lotto Rwanda has staked Frw4.8 million for today’s final champion while Frw3.6M, Frw2.4M and Frw1.2M have been set a side for the second, third and fourth winners respectively. This event will also involve the handing out of the last season’s Primus league trophy top champions APR.APR FC is also defending champion of the 2006 edition of the Lotto Cup championship.Ends
